


Stroke of Luck

by anticyclone



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Earth's arrival on Atlantis, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Sateda controls Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Satedans are notoriously protective of their homeworld, but when an emergency recalls Ronon home, and Teyla along with him, she finds that the Satedans are hiding even more than she thought possible. And neither of them quite believe these unexpected visitors claiming to be from another galaxy. What are the odds of that?





	Stroke of Luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



Teyla caught the moment the Satedan negotiator overstepped his authority by the looks on his guard's faces. As one, they seemed to cringe, and Ronon even raised his eyes to the ceiling. The expressions were gone in a blink and Farin didn't even notice. He continued to expound on how tenuous the trading relationship between Athos and Sateda would be if she didn't agree to his terms, here, at this table.

Nodding slowly, Teyla folded her hands. They were not on Sateda, of course, nor any of the outposts many suspected Sateda to have established in the past few decades. Teyla could count on one hand the times she had visited the Satedan homeworld, and the first two had been as a child, with her father.

"Very well," she said, watching Farin's face light up. Behind him, Ronon raised one eyebrow at her. She ignored him. "If these are the terms Sateda has to offer, then perhaps it is time for Athos to concentrate our efforts on other relationships."

Farin's throat flushed red.

Teyla had always disliked watching the man grow angry. She began to pack her few things. By the time the table was clear, Farin was ready to backpedal. "Now, Teyla, we have already contracted for you to be present at the opening of the ceremonies with Ordal."

"A contract for one day's work, with two day's preparation, which I will fulfill. But I simply cannot commit myself or any of my people to an indefinite stay on another planet with no movement through the Ring," she said, rising to her feet.

Farin pressed his lips together. "Ordalen officials specifically demanded that you be present."

"I am … confident … that between the two of us, we can explain why I must leave after the opening ceremonies have concluded."

In the back of the room, Ronon mimed silent applause.

Teyla schooled her face so she would not smile.

***

"You should have let him go back to Sateda without a deal," Ronon told her, as soon as they were out of earshot of Farin and the others.

Teyla shot him one of her expressionless, sideways looks, then continued moving through the crowd like a fish swimming upstream. Ronon neatly placed himself between her and the side alleys before she could take a shortcut to the Ring. Hard to guard somebody who kept complaining about the secure route. But Teyla had already managed to shake Ronon once before, and once was too much. He still had no idea what she'd really been doing in the twenty minutes it'd taken him to find her placing an order at a spice stall.

"Why would I have done that? Then I would not have secured well-paying employment for myself and three of my people."

"Because he'd get chewed out for losing you at the conference. They'd have sent a better deal back."

"That is true."

They hit the stairs leading out of the market district. The many, many stairs. Ronon didn't understand a planet that loved stairs this much. He had to walk behind Teyla because there wasn't enough room to walk beside her, too.

"So…" he prompted, after a moment.

"Farin will be at the conference, yes?" Teyla asked. She kept talking like it hadn't really been a question. "There are always adjustments to be made to agreements at these events. Farin will want very much for me not to mention that this could be the second time Athos' patience was tried."

Ronon snorted.

When they finally arrived at the Ring, a large group of traders was walking through. But standing off to the side was a man in Satedan uniform - not military, but civil, which made Ronon's hands curl at his sides. He picked up the pace slightly so that he reached the man before Teyla did. Up close, he could see a small flower pin on the man's collar.

"What's an assistant to the Council doing here?" he asked. He hoped that Teyla would go wait in line behind the traders for use of the Ring, but instead she walked right up to them. She had a pleasant, almost-smile on her face.

The assistant glanced at her. "My name is Aril Reonal." Then he looked back at Ronon. "We need to return to Sateda."

"Teyla is going back to Athos."

"There is to be no delay."

Teyla touched his arm. "I can return home after you, Ronon."

Ronon and Aril stared at each other. Aril had the same pleasant mask of an expression on his face as Teyla. Ronon had the feeling he shouldn't leave them alone together. He sighed. "Teyla isn't authorized to visit right now."

"Her authorization has been expedited," Aril assured him. He pulled a slip of paper, folded in half, from inside his coat. There was a small wax seal in the center with the Council symbol, a stylized version of a single Ring symbol. Ronon grunted, and the assistant put the paper away.

While he walked to the end of the line for the Ring, Teyla caught hold of Ronon's sleeve. "I do not understand."

"We can't let people wait at the Ring after us. You might see the combination. He said we're being pulled back, which means he can't wait to return behind you."

Teyla frowned. "I've been to Sateda before, Ronon."

"Sateda still has secrets."

***

Like an awestruck child on their first journey, Teyla stopped a few steps out of the Ring. Ronon gently put a hand on her shoulder and steered her forward and to the left, out of the way of the Ring's stretch and out of the immediate attention of the officials grouped in front of the Ring. They were circling something, a piece of equipment, but she couldn't quite make it out from here.

This was not Sateda.

"Ronon," she murmured. "What is this place?"

"A colony of Sateda."

Several people now were frowning at her. Aril had walked over to speak with them. No one moved to come closer, but their expressions did not ease, either. Teyla could not find it in herself to blame them. Sateda was notorious about maintaining the security of their world. Their people did not even have free movement through the Ring. The few times Teyla had visited, either alone or with her father in the past, they had been accompanied by members of the Satedan military.

This place … was something else entirely.

A grand sweeping staircase directly in front of the Ring, balconies and some sort of operations center above them, and the writing of the Ancestors on every available surface. Teyla felt her eyes widen. She forced herself to inhale. Not to wonder if the old city on Athos might have looked something like this, before it fell into disrepair. She was certain there was no place like this on Sateda. The technology, the design, bore little resemblance to most of what Ronon carried or what she had seen in their capitol.

There were rumors about what happened to people who learned more of Sateda than they were permitted. Teyla looked at Aril. Before he left, she would need that wax-sealed piece of paper he carried. It would require getting close enough to touch him.

She turned her attention to more immediate matters. The Ring had flared to life again, and more people were streaming out into the room. They had to walk around that machine. From here, Teyla had a better look at it. "Is that what everyone is concerned about?"

"I don't know what that is."

The machine was as large as several men clustered together, with three big, wide wheels on each side. There were plates of metal protecting it, a disc of metal on the side, and a folded metal arm on the top. It bore scorch marks from Satedan guns.

Now that Teyla was looking, too, she thought she saw blood on the floor. What was left had clearly survived a hurried attempt to clean it up. She took a careful step forward, which earned her an unhappy expression from Ronon, but… Yes, without the light directly in her eyes, there were several distinct spots on the floor where blood had been shed.

Her gut twisted. She let Ronon pull her back and around the edge of the room, closer to where Aril was now.

***

Ronon glared at Aril as soon as they were within whispering range. It took a few minutes to quietly move himself and Teyla around the room. Everyone was jumpy and he was sure Teyla had spotted the blood on the floor, even though it had taken a little longer for her eyes to snag on it. But then, she wasn't used to this cavern of a room. Most people took a minute to gape at it when they came in the first time.

Aril didn't say anything until Teyla stumbled into his side. Ronon had a bad feeling about that, especially because her hand touched his coat for a moment, but Aril simply caught her arm and helped her stand up. "Are you all right, Teyla?"

"Of course, I am fine. I apologize. I am … still taking this all in." She smiled. "Sateda is truly magnificent."

Ronon rolled his eyes.

"Your words are much appreciated," Aril murmured, smiling back. He looked at Ronon. "The briefing is about to start."

In the center of the room, the ranking Specialist turned to face them all. Her face was grim. "All assets currently able to be retrieved have arrived. Please be silent." She paused, which was all the time she needed for everyone to go quiet. "I am Specialist Marek. Several hours ago, Command received an unexpected hail through the Ring. It was not from a Satedan frequency."

Shit.

"We maintained a connection to discuss matters until the Ring closed, as it does after a time." Marek gestured at the machine. "The other party did not re-initiate the call, but Command decided to reach out again. We needed to determine if their information was accurate and whether we were truly compromised. We asked them to send a greeting party through. They sent this first." She sneered. "They said, to test the atmosphere."

Ronon looked at the machine. He didn't see anything that was obviously a weapon, but having been on an Atlantis rotation for the past year, he'd seen a lot of weapons that didn't obviously look like weapons. And things that the translators claimed the Ancestors didn't classify as weapons but sure as fuck should have.

"Eventually they sent through seven people," Marek said. "The initial conversation was not productive. Their seven are currently in holding with one in the infirmary. If I call your name, please proceed with me."

She rattled off several names, including Aril and Ronon, then turned and walked up the stairs.

Ronon and Aril looked at each other, and then Teyla.

"We can't possibly leave you here," Aril murmured. He looked anxious.

"Perhaps I could be of assistance. Sateda has used my expertise in negotiations before."

Ronon grunted. He didn't want to lock her in a room somewhere. Who knew if she'd still be there when he came back. "We should ask Specialist Marek."

***

Specialist Marek walked very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that they did not catch up with her until they reached the end of a hallway. And then Ronon and Aril walked Teyla into a closet, touched a screen on the wall, and walked her back out the same doorway but into a completely different room.

"I am not sure I like that," Teyla murmured, too softly for anyone but either of them to hear. Ronon smirked, but it fell away as soon as the group in front of them noticed their entrance.

Marek stared at them. She was tall and broad, with dark hair done up in a twist at the back of her head. Up close, Teyla could see a pale scar just above her eye. "Why did you bring her here?"

Ronon kept his face blank. "Teyla was recalled from Guertwe with me."

Aril touched his chest, seemed to realize the faint weight of his sealed paper wasn't there, and smoothly turned it into a small, sweeping gesture. "We apologize for the intrusion but this is Teyla of Athos. It was determined we could not leave her on the planet when Specialist Dex was summoned."

For a long moment Marek looked like she might shove Telya back into the strange closet. Then she grunted and turned around to look back at the cells in front of them. Next to her, Ronon relaxed, and Aril shot her a glare. She ignored it. The paper was tucked into her clothing where he would never attempt to get to it, and it was safer to have it on her than to have him carry it. He should have kept it somewhere more secure if he disagreed.

Four of the people were very pale and two were of similar coloring to her, Ronon, and Aril. Their clothing did not look at all familiar. Some kind of rugged black uniform for several of the people, complete with empty weapons holsters, and a blue shirt and earth-toned pants for the others. Each of them had a patch on their arms, but not all of the patches matched. Civil representatives and military?

A woman with dark, curly hair stood at the front of the room. She was slight and wearing the military-style uniform but had no holsters for weapons at her sides. But she stood before her people with her chin raised and her shoulders squared as if she was shielding them. An angry red bruise marred her neck and it seemed someone had hit her in the nose.

"Hello, Specialist Marek."

Marek glanced at the Satedans in the room. "This is Elizabeth Weir. She claims she is from another galaxy, and that her people are direct descendents of the Ancestors."

No one spoke, but Aril inhaled sharply.

"Some of my people do carry genes passed onto us by the Ancients - the Ancestors," Elizabeth said. She spoke rapidly, as if she was unsure whether Marek would continue allowing her to speak. "Those members of our group are able to use Ancestral technology. We came here to  _ study  _ the Ancestors. To learn more about what was in the Pegasus galaxy, this galaxy. As we tried to explain before, many, many years ago, the Ancestors came to our planet, and-" She jerked back as the cell wall suddenly sparked.

A man with messy dark hair caught and steadied her. His face was calm. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen shut. He must have been wearing a black coat at some point, like the others, but it had been taken from him. There was a large, blood-stained bandage on one of his arms.

Marek snarled. "You came here with weapons!" She pointed at someone who immediately took a step back. "No one is supposed to have the sequence to reach Atlantis except for Satedans. I need to know yesterday how it got out."

"One of our scientists deciphered it from writings left by the Ancients on our planet," a man cut in. He had brown hair and an unhappy slant to his mouth. "If you didn't want people visiting, you shouldn't have let us in."

"Rodney," Elizabeth whispered. The man pressed his lips together and turned away. There was a bruise on his temple, and a cut on the corner of his mouth.

The man Marek had pointed to left the room. Marek started walking back and forth in front of the cell. She was intent on the Satedans and doing her best to avoid the visitors. "If the security of Atlantis is compromised, the security of the homeworld may be compromised. We must rectify this situation immediately. We cannot allow word of the colony to spread."

"What if what they say is true?" Aril asked, quietly.

Marek walked up and grabbed the front of his shirt. He let out a surprised breath but didn't move. "It is  _ not  _ possible to reach into another galaxy! And you should know better than anyone that there are Satedans capable of using Ancestral technology, Aril." She let him go and shoved him back so he stumbled. "Mind your place."

An anxious man hesitantly cleared his throat from behind the cell bars. "On our planet, the Ancients mixed with the local population, which passed down the gene necessary to activate their technology," he said, not moving forward from his spot toward the back of the cell. He spoke in an entirely different accent than either Elizabeth or Rodney. "It is possible that the same occured with your people."

"I am not interested in your theories, Doctor," Marek snapped. She finally looked at Ronon. "Specialist Dex."

"Specialist Marek."

"What is our policy on people who compromise the security of Sateda?"

Ronon briefly clenched his jaw. "Interrogation, then execution."

***

"You cannot mean to kill these people!" Teyla exclaimed.

Ronon knew she would. He shouldn't have brought her here. He should have left her in the dining hall or given her a few soldiers to mind her until he got back. But Marek had let her stay, so ultimately…

"I agree with this lady," Rodney muttered, from the cell.

"What if what they say is true? You clearly have made this great colony a strong home for Sateda," Teyla said. "If these people do carry lost knowledge from the Ancestors then it would only enrich Sateda. It would be a mistake to lose access to what they still have on their home planet. Perhaps they are mistaken about being from another galaxy-"

Rodney made a strangled noise. The beat-up guy with the messy hair popped him in the back of the head to shut him up.

"-but if you kill them, you will never find out." Teyla paused for a split second and before Marek could do more than open her mouth, added, "I am only here because Ronon needed to return immediately. Will you kill me too?"

"Sateda is a friend of Athos," Marek ground out.

Sateda also bought a fair amount of firestarter from Athos. Not just the little things Teyla used for portable light, but finer fuel made from a plant that grew like wildfire, but only on Athos. It was used to make explosives. Athos would be stricken if Teyla was not returned to them, but the weapons engineers in the Satedan military would be furious.

"I do not see much to fear in six people," Teyla said, which made Marek's face go dark. Teyla lifted her chin. "If you kill them, you will learn nothing more. What if their knowledge could enrich Sateda?"

Marek looked at the cell. She touched the blaster at her hip, then turned thoughtfully back to Teyla.

Ronon suddenly realized they'd been played.

If Marek was the Specialist in charge of this briefing, then she would have known who needed to be recalled. She would have known Ronon was with Teyla. And she would have known how Teyla would react to the proclamation that he would be ordered to carry out an execution.

Marek was putting on a show for the strangers. Ronon hated games, but he was reluctantly impressed. There was no way for the strangers to have enough information to put together what Marek had done. He looked at Aril, but Aril's head was bowed. If the Assistant had pieced it together too, Ronon had no way of knowing.

And either Teyla had figured it out too, or she was stupid enough to insult Marek to her face - being afraid of a few measly strangers? behind bars? And Ronon wasn't willing to bet that Teyla had suddenly turned stupid.

"Perhaps we will … delay final judgment," Marek finally murmured. Several people in the cell visibly relaxed. Not the guy with the messy hair. That could get complicated. "Specialist Dex."

"Specialist?"

"You have a new assignment. Until we know more, no one is coming  _ or  _ going from Atlantis. Athos must be contacted and assured of Teyla's safety. After this, I want you both to return here." Marek smiled, slowly. "We have much to discuss. Someone must control security for this room, and maybe we will even have further use for Teyla's insight."

Teyla did a good job of not scowling as she bowed her head. "I will offer what assistance I am able."

Marek jerked her head toward the slider closet and people began to file out of the room in threes. Aril waited for them, but Marek was holding back, so he went on by himself.

"Let's go. I need to prepare some things," Marek ordered.

So they left, too, Ronon wondering if he could get more bars installed to put the guy with messy hair in a cell by himself.

***

They'd been left alone with just a couple of guards, who still hadn't been introduced. John didn't relax just because Marek was gone. He couldn't relax until he knew whether Colonel Sumner was going to get back up again. The Satedan military, so efficient so far, had swept him away the moment it'd been clear he'd been 'interrogated' a little too hard to the side of the head.

And fuck, his eye hurt.

Ford bumped his shoulder, gingerly. Ford had been tossed pretty hard to the floor while they'd been having their weapons wrenched away. "You don't seem very happy, sir," he murmured, voice too soft to carry.

"This wasn't exactly in the brochure," John muttered back.

Elizabeth, Carson, and a scientist - Grodin, or something? - were huddled together speaking in hushed voices. Elizabeth was standing remarkably straight considering John was pretty sure they'd almost dislocated their shoulder when she had refused to shut up about the Milky Way. She hadn't stopped talking until that punch to Sumner's head. Then they'd all been ushered down here.

It had been hours. Mostly this, just the guards, with several sudden furious appearances from Marek. This was the first time they'd been introduced to anybody else. He was pretty sure that new guy, Dex, didn't like the look of them at all.

Rodney was watching the guards. "So are you going to feed us today, or what?"

John leaned back and shut his eyes.

"Uh, Sir?"

"What's up, Ford?"

"Should… you be hitting your head against the wall like that?"

John really hoped that Teyla lady had meant it when she said she didn't want them killed. He also really hoped that meant something to Marek.

Join the Stargate program, they said. It'll be fun, they said. You'll have adventures, they said.

John still hadn't even seen a fucking space ship.

***

"I do not appreciate being used, Ronon."

"Neither do I."

Ronon had insisted on visiting the armory before they returned to the prison on the lower levels of the colony. She paced back and forth while Ronon compiled more weapons than she believed were strictly necessary to watch over a group of battered people in a cage.

"You still have not explained where we are."

"Sateda discovered this place a couple decades ago. It was on the bottom of the ocean when we first got here."

"It was what?"

"There was some kind of force field in place. They did something to bring it to the surface. If you look out a window, it's all ocean. There's land, but we're too far to see it from here. This place used to belong to the Ancestors."

"I always thought it was not possible to use much of the Ancestors' technology."

An unhappy expression crossed Ronon's face. "Some people can. Some Satedans can, anyway." He finally looked up at her. "This colony has a lot of weapons. And no one knows how to get here. The hailing sequence was lost. We found it in some ruins on Sateda. Now we use this place to hide and fight Wraith."

That did make Teyla pause. Everyone had suffered casualties to the Wraith, of course, but an outpost entirely dedicated to it… "Has Sateda reason to believe the Wraith are awakening in large numbers?" she asked, managing to keep much of the alarm out of her voice.

"You know what they say about waiting for the Wraith," Ronon said, dryly.

Teyla sighed. She clasped her hands behind her back. "Do you believe Specialist Marek will really order these visitors' executions?"

If she was fighting a losing battle, it was something she needed to know now. There were things she was willing to do to prevent innocent people from being killed. There were things she was also willing to let go, burdens she was willing to carry, to keep Athos and her people safe. The sooner she knew what she was facing here, the better, and answers would not be forthcoming from the Specialist herself.

Ronon stared at her for a moment. Then he holstered his gun and stood. "Specialist Marek wants to kill the Wraith where they sleep," he said, which made Teyla's eyebrows rise. "If these people are really from another galaxy, and they can do that? She'll keep them."

Teyla had visited many worlds. More than she could name, all in one way or another shaped by the Wraith. There was very little she wouldn't give to see every Wraith wiped out of this world. The idea of slaughtering that menace before they even awoke was still a simple child's dream, though, even to her.

"I don't see how that could be possible," she finally said.

Ronon hesitated in the doorway. "We should make one more stop before we go back down."

***

"Is any of you a pilot, by chance?"

John raised his head. They had been speaking for over an hour. Or, really, Teyla had been speaking with Elizabeth, and a little with Carson and Grodin and a few nearly painful-to-watch exchanges with Rodney. For most of the time the guy set in charge of them - Ronon Dex, apparently - was in the background speaking to other guards. He'd guess that the Satedans were working out a schedule for keeping watch of them. Which at least meant that promised execution was not immediately in their future after all.

"Major Sheppard is a pilot," Elizabeth said, turning around to wave him forward.

John reluctantly peeled himself off the wall. About fifteen minutes into the chat session, Ford had wandered closer to the front of the cell to be closer to the conversation. He stepped aside now to let John up to the bars. But not so close that they'd spark again.

Teyla smiled at him. She did seem sincere. But her clothes were also sleeveless, and you didn't get arms like that from hugging people. "Hello, Major Sheppard. I am pleased to meet you."

Giving a significant look to the bars, John dryly said, "Likewise." He managed to avoid the elbow Elizabeth aimed at him by casually stepping to the side. "Specialist Dex, pleased to meet you too."

Ronon didn't even look up.

"As I've explained, I do not have … authority here on Atlantis," Teyla said. Something uneasy flickered through her eyes then, but she pushed it away. "However, my opinion is taken into account, and Specialist Marek did give me a directive to … learn more about you. I have also learned slightly more about Sateda's hopes in combating the Wraith."

"What are the Wraith?" John asked.

Now Ronon did look up, and John didn't like the expression on his face. He looked like he'd just stepped in something. "What are the Wraith? Really?"

Teyla stared at them. Her eyes went to Elizabeth, then back to John, then across the cell. She opened her mouth, shut it, and took a slow breath. She seemed genuinely thrown for a loop. "I have never met anyone who did not know of the Wraith. Perhaps … you call them something else?"

John and Ford looked at each other. He couldn't see the scientists' expressions, or Carson's, but Elizabeth suddenly seemed tense. She met John's eyes and then looked back at Teyla. "Perhaps you could tell us more about them."

Across the room Ronon waved off his guards. He walked up to the bars and stared at them, too, intense. "They're not fucking with us," he said, apparently to Teyla. "They really don't know."

"If you do not know of the Wraith, then…" Teyla shook her head. "I did not believe you could truly be from so far away, but… Ronon, we cannot keep them here. They must warn their people."

"Warn them about  _ what?"  _ John asked. "And, uh, why d'you need a pilot, again?"

"The Wraith eat people," Ronon said.

"Ronon!" Teyla took in their faces. "The Wraith are … They are predators. They are shaped like us, but they live off of us. They feed off of our life force and for many years at a time, most of them will sleep on their ships."

John's mouth twisted. They were fighting an aerial war with life-sucking vampires and they didn't have any pilots? "Sorry, but after being invited in and then punched in the face, I'm not really buying all this."

Frustrated, Teyla turned to Ronon. "You must have something you can show them."

It turned out he did. After some hushed conversation and a guard leaving and coming back a couple of awkward, tense minutes later, Ronon held a small tablet up to the bars for them all to watch. It wasn't very big - they all had to crowd in together, and Rodney's elbow ended up right in the middle of John's back. He was considering returning the favor when the video went from what looked like a normal firefight in a street to something straight out of a goddamn Ridley Scott movie.

Past the screaming on-screen, there was a dull  _ thunk  _ at the back of the cell. John would have checked on whoever passed out, but he couldn't look away from the video.

"This is why you need a pilot?" he asked.

He watched a beam of light sweep over the street and several people disappear, while the hulking alien vampire turned a young soldier to an emaciated old man in a matter of moments. Next to him, Elizabeth was very still. The ship that had shot out the beam of light disappeared into the sky on screen. Its trajectory was so sharp and the whole scene so bizarre that John had a sinking feeling he knew where it was headed, and it wasn't anywhere on the unfortunate planet in the video.

Teyla said, "I did not realize you would not know of the Wraith. I do not know… I hope your homeworld is very far away, Major Sheppard," she murmured. "But yes. I believe that if you can assist Sateda, they will let you go. They may even want to work with your people, if they can provide more support in this battle."

John finally looked away from the carnage. "What kind of ship do you have?"

***

John called the spaceships 'jumpers,' which Ronon didn't understand and didn't ask for clarification on. He was starting to get a headache from the way these people talked. They said they were from Earth, and that they worked for an organization called Stargate Command, and that was around the time Ronon stopped trying to understand things. The idea of an entire planet almost completely unaware of other life was so mind-bogglingly ignorant that he literally didn't want to think about it.

He really didn't want to think about whether he'd trade being that ignorant for never having seen a Wraith.

"You're not getting on with us," Ronon insisted, his hand on Teyla's shoulder. She was giving him a look that promised his hand was going to regret it the second they weren't around guests. But he wasn't going to budge. "What if it blows up?"

"It's not going to blow up," John insisted.

"Didn't your scientists just say these haven't been used in ten thousand years?" They'd brought two others with them, Grodin, who Ronon actually didn't mind, and Rodney, who he'd been happy to order shuffled back to the cells with several guards. He didn't want either scientist around if the ship actually did work. Marek would need to decide how much she wanted to use the Earth people, at that point.

There were a fair amount of people in Atlantis who could use Ancestral technology. Ronon wasn't one of them, but he'd talked to some of the people who were. Sateda had managed to raise the colony from the ocean floor and get a lot of its systems working. They had even replenished the power source with a store of these giant crystal-looking power cores someone had dug up from an Ancestral ruin on the homeworld. But nobody had managed to get any of the spaceships to do more than turn on the overhead lights. Who knew what would happen if an engine started running.

John half-grimaced. "It'll be fine."

Ronon looked at Teyla. "You're not getting on. Just me and him."

"And what if you blow up?"

"Run," Ronon advised.

Teyla glared at him, but stayed put as he ushered John up into the ship.

They sat down by the control panel. Ronon hated these fucking seats. They were too hard, and the angles too sharp. So much of what the Ancestors designed was so useful, but they must have hated sitting down, because their chairs sure didn't encourage it.

John looked at the dark control panel. "Now what?"

"You're the pilot."

"I mean, yeah, but I fly, you know… helicopters." He saw the look on Ronon's face and made a spinning gesture with one finger. "They're like boxes with a rotor on top."

Ronon tried not to groan. "Are you telling me you've never flown a spaceship before?"

"Neither have you," John muttered. He looked back at the controls and squared his shoulders. Ronon got ready, in the back of his mind, for Marek to tell him these people were useless after all and he was going to have to shoot them. It was too bad. Elizabeth had seemed nice, anyway.

Then John put his hands on the panel and all the lights came on - plus some Ronon had never seen before. And the ship almost immediately jumped off the floor. They rocked dramatically to one side, but John did something and they managed to stabilize, hovering high up enough that when he looked out the window Teyla's face was too far away to read clearly.

"Like riding a bicycle," John said.

Ronon sank back in his seat. He bit back a laugh, but couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from curling up. "I don't know what the fuck that is."

"It's, uh, it's like a wire frame on two wheels that…" John shook his head. "It's nothing like a spaceship." He hesitated, then slowly began to rotate the ship. At the same time new things came up in the window, control screens that reminded Ronon of the ones in the Ring room, and other places in Atlantis. He'd never seen them in the ships before. "So," John asked. "Where are we going with this thing?"

"If we're lucky, to kill some Wraith."

"What if we're not lucky?"

Ronon snorted. "Satedans make our own luck."


End file.
